I'm pretty much of the same position: I would vaccinate (and did) because I think that it is the right thing to do (unfortunately I caught a pretty bad case of the virus well before vaccines were available, so by the time I got the vaccine it was more for mobility reasons than because I expected a major boost against the virus from it) and at the same time oppose a vaccine mandate, it just doesn't seem right to me, people should have the right to choose such things even though the net result for society is negative and if they catch if for them personally it is even more negative or even fatal.
As for Afghanistan: that's a mess that has such a complicated history (going back 100+ years if you really dig into it) that someone who is mostly following orders by whoever is in command of that particular group is likely not going to bother reading up on to make up their mind on which side of that particular line they want to stand. Otherwise they wouldn't be in that line of business to begin with.
Meanwhile this friend of mine (whom I still care about a lot, even though our lives have taken different routes) also told me that he'd be gone for Afghanistan for a month or so, his company (the biggest European defence group) was closing up shop there and stuff needed to be taken care of. So, I was receiving "you're in the wrong reality" complaints about my view on vaccine-related stuff from a person whose company is in the business of killing people (because that's the business defence companies are in).
Like I said, there are realities and realities.